My Plan

​﻿My Strategy: Unified Member-Driven Power

It’s one thing for a candidate to say he wants to make positive changes. It’s quite another thing to have a strategy to make those changes happen. My strategy involves using issue-based working groups to unify principals and administrators with one another, and with individuals and organizations throughout the city who share our interests. The more isolated people are, the more they can be taken advantage of. For the past decade, our association has been isolated from the bulk of its members, and--as a result--its members have been isolated from each other, and we have been relatively powerless as a result. With your help, I will institute a new way of doing business that brings and end to this isolation.

﻿The Foundation

My plan is based on the proven effectiveness of Group Power. Power is simply the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change. The short statements below reflect the theoretical underpinnings at the heart of my strategy.

What is needed is an understanding that powerwithout love is reckless and abusive and love without power is sentimental and anemic. ​--Martin Luther King, Jr.

There is no power in the world that can stop the forward march of free men and women when they are joined in the solidarity of human brotherhood.—Walter Reuther

The only thing that power respects, ispower.​​--Malcolm X

﻿The Issues

I have talked with principals and administrators from Beverly on the far south side to Edgebrook in the Northwest corner of the city. Here are some of the things your colleague's are saying need to be changed in CPS:

Privatization of Engineers

Undermining neighborhood schools

Lack of resources for schools serving students in poverty

Lack of overall funding adequacy

Flawed & unfair SQRP rating system

Charter poaching and cherry-picking

Duplicitous charter vs. public expulsion standards

Reduced resources for special education students

​Lack of transparency from Central Office

Time spent compensating for the poor performance of Aramark/Sodexo

An overall lack of respect for our work

Reduced compensation via no raises for admin, furlough days, and attempts to end pension compensation

Fostering an adversarial relationship with teachers

Lack of meaningful professional development

Support for APs in the principal eligibility process

REACH and other burdensome compliance demands

Protecting good principals from bad LSCs

A culture of fear and intimidation

"At-will" status of assistant principals

The Choice

The honest truth is that--even as president--I cannot have an impact onany of the above issues if I tackle them alone. No president can. In order to have an impact on these issues, we must unify and use CPAA to harness our collective professional power. ​This can only happen if CPAA has a president who is willing to empower a critical mass of principals and administrators. Chicago principals and administrators are at a crossroads. CPAA can continue negotiating with CPS from a position of relative powerlessness, or we can come together through CPAA to harness the greatest power we have: the power of our members united--speaking and acting as one. That is exactly what I will do as our association's next president.

Tool for Change: Issue-based working groups​Working Group OverviewWe will commission working groups of principals and administrators to address SQRP issues, REACH burdens, fairness for neighborhood schools, funding and resources, charter school poaching, and other member concerns. The members of each working group will conduct research; collect anecdotal evidence; develop policy positions; advocate for those positions in policy-making arenas (CPS, City Hall, Springfield); and advocate publicly through social and mass media.

Using Working Groups to Unite PrincipalsThese working groups will empower principals and administrators by connecting them to colleagues who share the same concerns and giving them a means through which to address those concerns. In addition, each group will use surveys, interviews, and focus groups to ensure our positions are informed by the voices of every principal and administrator in CPAA.

Ongoing CPAA Support for the Working GroupsEach working group will be supported by the president and CPAA staff. CPAA has an attorney, accountant, clerical and program staff. Currently these staff members primarily serve the president. Under the working group structure, these staff members—along with the president--will support the efforts of the principals and administrators in each working group.

Using Working Groups to Build Coalitions Outside of CPSConnect the working groups with city and state partners. The issues that concern our principals and administrators are not our issues alone. Dozens of community organizations, foundations, and elected officials share many of our concerns and values. Not only must CPAA end principals’ isolation from one another, it must also end our isolation from groups that could be our natural allies. I have been nurturing relationships with organizations and individuals across Chicago. If we add the voice and power of principals to their efforts, they can add their voice and power to ours.